The Environment

Strict Father morality includes the notion of the natural order of domination: God has dominion over human beings; human beings over nature; parents over children; and so on. By the metaphor that the Moral Order Is the Dominant Order in nature, this arrangement is seen as a moral one, with the responsibility for protection and care going along with moral authority. But man's protection and care make sense only in the context of the primary given: the domination of man over nature according to man's priorities, which is taken to be both natural and moral. Newt Gingrich says all this straightforwardly:

For me, any such effort [at environmentalism] begins with the premise that man dominates the planet and that we have an absolute obligation to minimize damage to the natural world. I am not a preservationist. It is impossible for us to be a dynamic species and still act as if we don't exist. (References, CI, Gingrich, p. 195)

It is assumed that being a "dynamic species" – one that figures out how to get what it wants and then goes for it – is naturally going to result in "damage" to the environment. You don't stop going after what you want, but you do try to minimize the damage.

Strict Father morality starts with the "natural order," the domination of man over nature. It adds the Morality of Self-interest, in which the self-interest of all is maximized if we each seek our personal self-interest. It further adds the Morality of Reward and Punishment as the basis of morality, which implies that it is immoral to stop individuals from working hard for the sake of profit.

What all this adds up to is the view that nature is there as a resource to be used by man for his self-interest and profit. But, frugality being a virtue, the resource should be "conserved' ' as much as possible. We should use it for our individual aims but not be too wasteful. Conservative environmentalism is "conservation" – "hardheaded management with regard to costs and benefits" (Gingrich, To Renew America, p. 198). "To get the best ecosystem for our buck, we should use decentralized and entrepreneurial strategies, rather than command-and-control bureaucratic effort" (ibid., p. 196). In short, there should be no attempts at top-down overall controls on what happens to an ecosystem. Our relationship to nature should work according to free-market principles.

Conservative environmentalism – the conservative view of man's relationship to nature – arises naturally from Strict Father morality. It is conceptualized and reasoned about in terms of a system of common metaphors that best fit the Strict Father view. Those metaphors are:

• Nature Is God's Dominion (given to man to steward wisely).

• Nature Is a Resource (for immediate human use).

• Nature Is Property (for the use of the owner, and for sale and purchase).

• Nature Is a Work of Art (for human appreciation).

• Nature Is an Adversary (to be conquered and made to serve us).

• Nature Is a Wild Animal (to be tamed for our use).

• Nature Is a Mechanical System (to be figured out and put to use).

These modes of metaphorical thought allow us to comprehend and reason about nature in accord with what Strict Father morality tells us.

The stewardship metaphor says that nature, by God's authority, is man's to use for whatever he wants, but he should use it sensibly and frugally.

The resource metaphor (consider the term "natural resources") assumes that whatever is in nature is, and should be, part of a human economic system. Its value is not intrinsic but is determined by how useful it is to human beings and how plentiful it is. If it is plentiful, then by the law of supply and demand, its value will be low. If it is rare, its value will be high. It also follows that certain aspects of nature will be categorized together in classes determined by human purposes. Salmon, for example, is classified in our economic system as a fish used for food. Its value is its use as a food. If salmon become extinct, it is no big deal because there are still many other fish that can be used as food, that serve the same function as a resource. The mere existence of salmon living in streams and spawning there is in itself of no value in the metaphor of nature as a resource.

The property metaphor is, of course, not universal. There are cultures where the very idea of a person being able to own a tree or a forest or a mountain would be ludicrous. Under the property metaphor, nature is up for sale, just like a sofa or a car or a video game. Things in nature – forests, lakes, volcanoes, canyons – can be put to any use the owner wants, or even destroyed if that is the owner's wish. The value of nature, in this metaphor, is as a commodity, and it fluctuates with local tastes and market conditions. In this metaphor, streams, lakes, and valleys have no inherent value, only market value.

The work-of-art metaphor assigns nature an aesthetic value dependent on human aesthetic sensibilities. A Grand Canyon or a Yosemite or a whale takes on value because of how it is aesthetically judged. A desert ecology or a homely newt will, for most people, have low aesthetic value.

The adversary metaphor makes the "conquest of nature" noble and man's domination of nature something worked for and therefore earned and deserved. It assumes an alienation of man from nature, a separateness that can be overcome only through domination. It assumes that nature, in an un-conquered state, is dangerous to man and that man must dominate nature to survive. The continuing and expanding domination of nature becomes, by this metaphor, a form of self-defense and a moral enterprise.

The wild-animal metaphor again sees nature as alien to man and dangerous, but of possible economic use. The "taming" and domination of nature thus becomes a noble enterprise – and a profitable one.

The mechanical-system metaphor characterizes our understanding of the role of science vis-à-vis nature. Science is seen as having the job of figuring out what makes nature tick and what nature's internal workings are. The purpose is control, so that we can use nature for our purposes.

Nurturant Parent morality sees our relation to nature in a very different light. The natural world is what gives us life, what makes all of life possible, and what sustains us. Nature has provided and continues to provide. Our relationship with nature is as the recipient of nurturance and as such it involves attachment, inherent value, gratitude, responsibility, respect, interdependence, love, adoration, and continuing commitment.

This view of nature is conceptualized using the following metaphors.

• Nature Is a Mother (who provides for us).

• Nature Is a Whole (of which we are inseparable parts).

• Nature Is a Divine Being (to be revered and respected).

• Nature Is a Living Organism (whose needs must be met if it is to survive).

• Nature Is a Home (to be maintained and kept clean).

• Nature Is a Victim of Injury (who has been harmed and needs to be healed).

The nature-as-mother metaphor sees nature as nurturer and provider. The normal relationship of a child to a nurturant mother is one of attachment and love, something of continuing inherent value that cannot be bought and sold – a relationship that gives meaning to one's life. One's moral attitude to a nurturant mother is one of gratitude, responsibility, and respect. You have a responsibility to provide for her needs to the best of your ability. You accord her dignity. You show your gratitude in your deeds. The relationship is one of mutuality, of interdependence. And it is not a weak or temporary relationship, it is a continuing commitment.

The whole-part metaphor stresses the attachment, mutuality, and interdependence of the relationship.

The divine-being (Earth As Goddess) metaphor focuses on our dependence, our respect, and our adoration.

The living-organism metaphor (as in the Gaia hypothesis) focuses on interdependence and the fact that ecosystems have needs that must be met if they are to survive.

The home metaphor stresses that the earth is where we live, that it is finite, that it is a place of nurturance and security, that it has to be maintained, that it has to be kept clean. It also focuses on the fact that we are attached to our homes, that there is something about our home that has inherent value, that a home has value far beyond its market value.

The injury metaphor focuses on the fragility of nature and the harm it has already undergone. It implies that nature cannot sustain continuing damage if the natural world as we know it is to survive, and that healing is necessary.

These are the metaphors for nature given highest priority in Nurturant Parent morality. Some of the metaphors used in the conservative view of nature also fit Nurturant Parent morality, but they have subservient status in the system and their meaning is radically changed by that status.

Take, for example, the resource metaphor. This moral system assumes not the domination of man over nature, but the interdependence of man and nature. Nature is a resource to someone nurtured by nature, but the nurturer must be nurtured too – we must take care of the earth. This entails the notion of sustainability. Nurturance requires interdependence if it is to be sustained; the same is true of our relationship to nature. The resource metaphor, in the context of the nurturance metaphor, implies sustainability, a central ecological concept. Yes, nature is a resource, but it must be a sustainable resource. Yes, natural resources have economic value, but not just economic value. Their economic value must be determined within the context of the system of inherent value I have just described.

Since nurturance is an aesthetic experience, the work-of-art metaphor applies, but in a very different way. In nurturance, the aesthetic experience is not separate from the experience of nurturance. Thus, the aesthetic values are not separate from all the other values entailed by nurturance, e.g., respect, attachment, continuing commitment. The aesthetic value of nature is, therefore, not just seeing a pretty scene when you take a walk in the woods. It is not like having a picture of the woods on the wall. The aesthetic experience is part of nurturing.

The mechanical-system metaphor, too, takes on a different meaning in Nurturant Parent morality. Discovering important things about a nurturant relationship that you are in is not separable from the nurturance itself. In a moral system where nurturance is the highest value, discovery is in the service of nurturance. If you live by Nurturant Parent morality, then scientific discoveries are nurturant values in themselves. They also take on importance when they are in the service of nurturance, for example, when they cure us of illness or allow us to communicate with friends and relatives who live far away.

From the perspective of nurturance, the stewardship metaphor takes on a very different meaning. Stewardship is not in the service of domination, but in the service of healing and sustaining nature so that it can continue to nurture us and so that we can continue to reap all the benefits of being in a two-way nurturant relationship with the natural world.

Given these very different moral conceptions of the relationship between human beings and nature, it should come as no surprise that liberals and conservatives have many opposing views on environmental policy. Take the Environmental Protection Agency. From a liberal perspective, the mission of the EPA is to serve the protective function of nurturance. Its function is both to protect the citizenry from environmental dangers and to protect the environment itself. It does its job through the enforcement of environmental laws and through the monitoring of environmental indexes, for example, the monitoring of air pollution. Part of its job is to regulate industries that produce pollution, like steel mills and power plants, to make sure they conform to environmental standards. Another part of its job is to enforce the Endangered Species Act. Still another part of its job is to study how to protect ecosystems, for example, wetlands. Once laws are passed, it decides how best to implement them.

From a liberal point of view, such an agency is absolutely needed. A part of "healing nature" is cleaning up our rivers and streams so that fish can live in them and plants can thrive on their banks, and so that they can be used as much as possible as sources for drinking water. This serves the purpose of both nurturing nature as well as nurturing people by supplying clean water to drink. Since the EPA was formed, its regulations have played a major role in cleaning up sources of drinking water. Liberals are aghast that conservatives have proposed legislation to cut the EPA's enforcement power so drastically that it could no longer stop industries from polluting drinking-water sources.

Conservatives want to eliminate the EPA on the grounds that government should encourage and reward free enterprise, not constrain and punish it. This fits the conservative view of nature as being there to serve private interests. Solutions to as many problems as possible should come out of free enterprise solutions that reward self-discipline and enterprise, rather than out of government-imposed constraints that punish enterprising companies through regulation.

Or take the issue of old-growth forests and the spotted owl. Old-growth forests are not merely many hundreds of years old. They are remarkable ecosystems with a unique variety and large number of smaller plants, insects, birds, and animals that fit together in an extraordinary complex ecosystem like no other. Ninety percent of America's old-growth forests have already been destroyed by logging; only ten percent are left and logging companies want to cut them down. They can never be replaced.

Nurturant Parent morality imposes a view of nature that assigns inherent value to old-growth forests. Their value is not in what you can sell their lumber for, or in how pretty they look, but in what they are. They are a unique form of nature that has almost been destroyed; a nurturant morality demands that they be protected.

Now it happens that there is no law on the books to protect old-growth forests for their own sake. But there is a law called the Endangered Species Act, which forbids the destruction of the habitat of a species that is on the EPA's list of endangered species. As it happens, there is an endangered species on that list that lives in old-growth forests and only old-growth forests: the spotted owl. Save the spotted owl and you save old-growth forests. Of course, the Nurturant Parent view of nature also assigns inherent value to endangered species, and hence to the spotted owl. But there is far more involved here than just the spotted owl. Liberals, naturally, are for the strict enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, and the consequence of saving the remaining old-growth forests.

Conservatives are furious and they should be, given their worldview. The most central features of Strict Father morality are being challenged. The Morality of Reward and Punishment, the very basis of Strict Father morality, is being challenged in two forms. The first is a challenge to unrestricted free enterprise, the unrestricted freedom to seek private reward for your labor and investments. If investors in the logging companies cannot realize expected profits on their investments, then that freedom has been limited. The second is a challenge to the unrestricted use of private property, the unrestricted freedom to do whatever you want with the fruits of your labor, namely, your property. Logging companies own some of these old-growth forests. If they cannot cut them down for profit, then restrictions have been placed on the use of private property. In addition, the very Moral Order has been challenged: the idea that man, by God's will, has dominion over nature and that nature is a resource for man's use. Loggers – ordinary, hardworking, moral, law-abiding folks – may lose their source of income. What is more important, people or owls? Common sense – the common sense of Strict Father morality – says people!

One of the common arguments the conservatives use against environmental regulation is that it can be done better by the use of the market. One proposal is the sale of pollution rights. Allot to each industry the right to pollute a certain amount. Then, if it pollutes less than that amount, allow it to sell its unused portion to another industry. That gives industries an incentive to pollute less so that they can sell their pollution rights. Done cleverly, its advocates claim, this market system can reduce industrial pollution.

Perhaps so. But that would not address the liberals' environmental concerns. Liberals conceptualize nature in very different metaphors than do conservatives. The liberal metaphors assign intrinsic value to aspects of nature; the market does not and cannot. Market solutions may help in many cases but they cannot address the deepest of liberals' concerns.

When one steps back for a moment and takes a look at conservative and liberal moral systems, it becomes apparent that the issue is not people versus owls or market forces versus the EPA, but two utterly opposed moral visions of the proper relation of man to nature. The issue is a huge one: Which moral view is to dominate, not just on environmental questions, but overall in our culture and our politics?

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14